Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Shaidle Panics?

Looks like she's trying to send some of the links to her "outrageous" comments down the memory hole. From the list, so far

On Indians: they are “parasites” who “extorted tax dollars [for] booze, smokes and junk food. Not to mention free everything else, including university educations they don't bother getting.”

· On Sikhs: "Backward foreigners [who] shit on hand that feeds them...Unable to invent their own iconic product due to too much time spent worshipping monkeys and cows, setting women on fire and obsessing over imperceptible differences in each other's skin colour..."

I really don't get any of this. Are people really blind? I can only imagine that other than us bloggers no one knows Shaidle. I mean just reading the LFP article today was more than enough to understand her racism. Hells bells!!!!

I just waded through 5 feet of fury and blazingcatfur. As soon as I finish posting I have to take a shower.

Mitka is right its sick.

The only good news is that I think they only speak amongst themselves. No one else (other than people like us) really care. None of my freinds ever heard of her and at least 2 of my buddies from London that read the Free Press article were shocked that the usually quiet and progressive Jewish community seemed at first to support her.

She is marginal and anyone who supports her have to be racists as well. Who else would ever consider it?

The only good news is that I think they only speak amongst themselves. No one else (other than people like us) really care.

I care when she shows up in mainstream media, particularly public broadcasting. Not merely because she misrepresents herself but because she has absolutely nothing of value to say with respect to the topics she addresses.

She's part of the general dumbing down of our mass culture (the unlettered loon called Obama a 'Marxist professor' on The Agenda) and that has to stop. Or at the very least, her vicious bigotry needs to be thrown in her face in a very public manner.

"But that's the one that's always offered when wingnuts get called on their incoherence and/or hypocrisy, is it not?"

Sometimes, maybe. But I have to admit: I stole the line about people having a "right to be dishonest" from a dispute that arose a while back between (I think) Tom Palmer (of Cato), and some freakazoids from the Lew Rockwell Institute.

Suffice to say, Palmer is a libertarian, and Lew Rockwell is full of neo-confederate gas bags. The latter group pulled a Shaidle and tried to cleanse some of their rhetoric, and Palmer called them on it.

You're probably right that "wingnuts" use that excuse, but more rational libertarians will call them on it.

But there's a subset of right-wing hypocrites who will persist, as always, to make life difficult for the rest of us.

Hello BCL: Again, I'll write that I think this is a tempest etc. But let me ask this: today Shaidle asks why no one is filing a human rights complaint against her, if so many are convinced she's promoting hatred. It's a fair question. Any takers?

John: rather convenient don't you think she'd be challenging someone to file a complaint, when on the same day, it appears she's trying to wipe out all trace of her offending blog postings that we've all listed.

And many of us can't be bothered, and also many of us think that while racist, bigoted, and etc., Shaidle doesn't really rank as a hate monger. She's just not that good at it, and probably would not meet the HRC standard.

BCL, I agree she is not very good at it but she writes despicable hateful posts. Then when a few courageous souls like kinsella or Farber speak out her basement dweller friends emerge from their filth and with spittle dribbling down their unshaven chins engage in ad hominem attacks.

Farber is quoted in the London Free Press critical of what Shaidle wrote. Shaidle and her cave people attack Farber personally. And yes that includes Mark Steyn who never met a person who he couldn't attack (ideas ahh now that's a differnet thing...you see you have to be smart to attack ideas)

I know the cesspool of the extreme rightwing blogosphere is no place for decent people but we need to continue to be critical of their ideas, expose their rampant venom, racism and ugliness.

BCL: Again, I appreciate the forum and your response, however indirect. I am going to challenge you though. I think that credibility is pretty important, don't you? Certainly in these arguments about what is hateful and what is not, what is harmful and what is helpful etc.

When you (and others) indicate that you have not filed human rights complaints against Shaidle because she is, essentially, not worth your time, well, something stinks a little.

She is worth your time here, on this blog. She is worth the effort to actively oppose her public appearances, at least at venues you (and others) have deemed inappropriate for her, the messenger, and the message she carries.

So it seems there is a large face here, large enough to have two sides. Here is my suggestion: I suggest (and remember, you are under oath...) that the real reason you (and others) have not filed a human rights complaint against Shaidle is that you know that complaint would fail.

Since, as she points out, "The Free Speechies are always saying that the answer to bigotry is to use YOUR free speech to criticize it." is a documented fact, why is it that the only people who ever criticize her for her racism are from the left?

(attention I'm about to use the "if you don't think the US should have invaded Iraq you love Saddam" line of reasoning" - hold on to your hat)

A further question would be this: If the only people who criticize her are from the left, does that mean that the people on the right all support the content of her statements? (not her right to say them, the content)

Another thought, isn't the fact that she hasn't been brought before the HRC basically proof that everything she and her ilk are on about (the tyranny of nice, the fascism of the system etc etc) is basically BS?

I think the point I've been trying to make, and probably not very well, is that I've come to see the whole back and forth brohaha in the so-called Canadian political blogosphere as a kind of travelling (through cyberspace) medicine show.

With an emphasis on show. I'm sure some of us are sincere at least some of the time. But it strikes me (and this is taking BCL's comments about blog traffic into account)that these attacks and counter attacks are primarily motivated by a desire to generate attention to the blogs that are involved.

Shaidle could say what she has to say minus the vitriol. But she knows that most of the attention she receives is the same attention a car accident receives. Humans are attracted, strongly attracted, to conflict.

I am absolutely happy with the criticism Shaidle receives. I think she is, in Buddhist terms, making bad causes day in and day out.

I don't however, trust the motivation of fellows like Kinsella, who I think is powerfully and compulsively in need of seeking attention.

I've said that at his site, and he chooses not to publish the comment. His perogative.

I assure you John that my crit of Kathy's bigotry is not based on a desire for hits on my blog. I have gotten to the point where I treat my blog as a kind of friends/family update center. If you get big in the blogworld you attract things like Richard Evans or Analogue. Its not worth it.

I actually try most of the time to avoid Kathy Shaidle's blog. Raises my blood pressure, makes me angry. Same thing with other "Dollars For Racism" blogs out there.

Sometimes however, stories like this start to make traction and I end my embargo.